


And Crowned in Edelweiss

by orphan_account



Series: My Teen Wolf One Shots [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Fluff, M/M, Nature, Post 3a, The Darkness - Freeform, mental process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He felt at home in the forest, he always had. It felt like another more sacred world, older than anything with something dark lurking peacefully beneath it only lashing out at those who had no right to be surrounded by it. </p><p>The crunching sound that could only be footsteps didn't register in his mind.</p><p>"Stiles."</p><p>Or: Sometimes you just need to get drunk in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Crowned in Edelweiss

“Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.”  
\- John Keats

xxx

Everything was falling apart around him, crushing him as it fell and stealing his sight. His every breath came in shudders and all he could see was night.

His father and Mrs McCall had be retrieved just in time to save them for Mrs Blake's blade, and Scott was no longer allied to the Alphas. Cora had been saved and was healing slowly, but Derek had given up his Alpha powers to save her. Lydia was unsteady on her legs while she tried to figure out what had made her what she was, and no one was talking to anyone about anything. 

His father wouldn't look at him, he was still processing while running around to solve the unsolvable murders as the Sheriff. They talked but no one really said anything. 

His mind wouldn't stop, his thoughts were sharp and painful and they wouldn't stop for a moment. He was reeling to see a way out, begging Deaton for guidance and help while he tried desperately to see... just to see past the crushing black curtain that had engulfed him. He hadn't felt like this in years, before the whole 'Matt' saga. Ever since they had given their lives in substitute it had been an ever present threat behind his eyes. Now it was constant and unrelenting. Like waves eroding him slowly.

Stiles was drowning again. 

So he did what he thought was best. He took a breath, took his car, and a bottle of Jack from his fathers cabinet. He needed to see again. He needed not to feel anything. And the trees were calling to him like they always did, with promises and sweet words that carried the smell of his Mothers perfume. Just an hour to feel nothing. Just one.

Of course Stiles didn't have the luck for that. Of course the universe had no pity for him.

Of course it would be Derek Hale who saw him weak.

…

He hadn't thought where he was going when he got into his car after his last period, full bottle of his fathers best Whisky under the passenger seat. He had just gunned it, driving as far and as fast as he could before the itching under his skin became to much and he had to stop the car before he crashed it.

The woods were thick and green, untouched by any kind of machine or man made device for a very long time. Thick deep brown trunks seeming like fortress walls or sentinel protectors, and Viridian leaves acting as a cool calming blanket over head. 

He felt at home in the forest, he always had. It was old and to be respected as his Mother had taught him. But it was freeing to walk through the forest, slow and ambling, and be completely surrounded by it. It felt like another more sacred world, older than anything with something dark lurking peacefully beneath it only lashing out at those who had no right to be amongst it. 

Stiles had learnt to walk amongst these trees, his mother clutching his hands and weaving flowers in to his baby fine hair. She had taught him her mother tongue in the grass and under the leaves, making each word sound like a song. She had shown him each flowers name and each trees birth rights, speaking as though each nugget of knowledge was something sacred and to be protected. He adored and remembered it all despite what he said when his father asked him. He was selfish with these memories.

And he was being selfish again. He found , small and still, with a ray of brilliant golden sunlight beaming in through a part in the canopy. The trees were thick around it, acting as a shield between him and the rest of the world as he lay himself down on the yellowing grass scattered with small white flowers. He sighed and smiled at how the air hugged his skin warmly. He felt free. 

He wasn't Stiles out here. We was Genim.

He couldn't remember when exactly he started to drink, all he could feel was a slow warm feeling buzzing under the skin and deluding everything else he was feeling. He didn't drink long and frantically like he had other times, desperate to feel numb. Though he wanted to have the same effect this time as well, he was content to take the slow road and favour his growing buzz.

His thoughts turned to colours and unfinished thoughts that didn't need to make sense. Everything turned slow and easy, he couldn't keep the smile from his face as he drifted to an almost sleep somewhere near the middle of the bottle. 

The crunching sound that could only be footsteps didn't register in his mind, nor did the gust of wind that came with movement or the slight blocking of the sun from his skin. He didn't feel anything but slow and safe and warm. 

“Stiles.”

He groaned in response. Not agitated, but like a stretching cat.

“Stiles, stop that.”

“..hhmm?”

“You're purring at me.”

He just purred again, refusing to open his eyes as he stretched closer to the sun.

“Stiles it's almost Sundown. We need to get you home, its not safe here.”

“I'm home already.” He finally slurred out in whisky thick words.

The voice sighed heavily and took the warming bottle from Stiles hand without a word of protest from the young man. How could he be mad when he was made of sunshine and dust?

“Stiles … do you know where you are?”

“Nuh.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Stiles thought, foggy brain cells connecting together in slow motion. Of course he did.

“Derek.”

A chuckle. A deep, nice sounding chuckle. Stiles laughed along.

Slowly, glacially slow, Stiles opened his eyes to see the man who had interrupted his warm oblivion. Derek's face was caught in a small smile that reached his eyes, his hair highlighted in reds and golds from the setting sun behind him. He looked happy. And Stiles was most certainly looking now.

“You smile nice,” Stiles giggled hand reaching out for Derek's face, “I like your nice smile.”

Derek didn't flinch away from the hand nor did his smile recede. He learnt into Stiles outstretched fingers, face going slack as he closed his eyes to just feel the touch. Stiles grinned, skimming his fingers over the werewolf's face and up to his ears. Derek had funny ears.

“You have funny ears man.”

The older man huffed, bringing Stiles hand down to rest in his lap where he could fiddle with his fingers.

This was all surreal, but Stiles didn't really pick up on that. Derek was being more human than he had ever seen him be before. Later the younger man would realise how terrifying that truly was.

“This is my land,” The older man ground out as he looked down at their combined twiddling fingers, “My families land. Has been for over One Hundred and Fifty years. Laura showed me this grove when I was eight and she was ten. It was our place.”

“Is that how you found me? Wolfy powers?”

He scoffed.

“No, Idiot, I saw your car by the side of the road.”

“...Huh.”

Stiles rolled his head to the side, reaching out his hand to gather a handfuls of flowers and grass strands. The flowers looked so tiny in his hands. Leontopodium alpinum.

Edelweiss.

“My mother was this forest,” Stiles whispered, hands twining the flowers together with the long soft grass, “She breathed for it. Lived for it. I like to think it lived for her too … and missed her when she left.”

“What was her name.”

“Nastusia. No one could pronounce that though, so they called her by her middle name; Claudia. Dad called her Nutty.”

Derek leant over him, reaching out too soft hands to help Stiles sit up. Everything was soft about Derek right now. Stiles wished they could stay in the forest forever, people so soft and made of dust. Or would it be ash?

“I should take you home.”

“Do you want to?”

“Not really.”

Stiles grinned, raising his hands to place the crown he had made on Derek's head, sluggish mind not caring about how the man could snap him in two with his eyebrows if he wanted. He wasn't a werewolf in the clearing. He was a distraction.

Derek seemed to blush, and it didn't register that Stiles may have said those things out loud.

“They mean purity,” He said in a whisper, feeling chilled as the sun finally set. How long had he been here.

“I'm anything but that.”

“Nobel Purity. It was so difficult to get people died in pursuit of it. Unreachable, and impossibly beautiful for it.”

“You're surprisingly eloquent for a drunk Teenager.”

“I read a lot.”

Stiles looked at Derek then. Looked beyond all the things that he had built up about the wolf, all the soot covered rumours and smoke filled images. He was just Derek. And he was looking back at Stiles with the saddest set of eyes he had ever seen.

The younger boy felt his breath hitch. Derek was drowning too. Derek was drowning and the pool was surrounded by nothing but scorched graves. God, why hadn't he seen this before? Why hadn't anyone saved him?

“Stiles, you're crying.”

He didn't hear the older man, didn't see anything but his face or feel anything than the chill around them. 

His mother had always told him to be gentle, to be kind, to find strength in those things. He had traded those things in for armour made of snarky words and an arms-length shield. But all he wanted now was to give Derek something, something kind and soft. People only took from Derek, took things he loved while they salted and burnt the ground he stood on. He wished he could remember how to be gentle for Derek.

Without thinking, god he was so sick of thinking, Stiles moved on to his knees so he was looking down at the older wolf. He moved his hands to the man's jaw, cradling his face in the way he always hoped someone would hold his. Stiles bit his own lips, sluggish mind taking in the man beneath his sinners hands, taking in the man he had no right to want. But god did he.

And he kissed him, warm and as soft as he could. He wanted to give Derek this, a moment of warmth and softness, to fell safe and loved for one god damn moment. 

He didn't expect Derek to kiss him back just as soft. To run a hand up Stiles back and cup the back of his head, running his fingers through his hair soothingly. It was perfect, and Stiles was hit with the sudden fear that he was dreaming. Or maybe Derek was dreaming. Would Derek dream about him?

The man under him chuckled as they parted, face sunny in the dim light. When did it get dark?

“I shouldn't have done that.”

“You didn't do it, I did. I did you.”

Derek shook his head.

“... Thank you. For doing it.”

Stiles grinned.

“You can take me home now.”

Derek stood without a word, hands and arms winding slowly around the younger boy so he could be his eyes in the dark. Stiles smiled, knowing Derek wanted to keep him safe and warm, but didn't want to say so. 

The forest was humming with its night time life now, insects and nocturnal animals stretching lazily as they woke up and moved off to do all manner of secret things. His mother used to make up stories from the back porch of their house, about how the bugs always buzzed louder in the summer to be heard over the heat, or how the foxes always slinked past because they were late for dinner and didn't want their wife to notice. She always made up the best stories. 

Derek came to a stop at the edge of the forest, just before it leveled out on to the road.

“Things are going to get ... different now, aren't they?”

Stiles smiled into Derek neck. He felt the skin under his eyelids grow warmer and chuckled, knowing Derek was blushing.

“Things will always be different. We just have to be different along with them.”

Derek sighed, and Stiles knew he was rolling his eyes in the signature Hale way. Stiles turned closer to him, lips brushing over Derek's throat as he spoke in a whisper.

“I don’t feel the darkness when I’m out here. It feels like I can breath for myself instead of everyone else. I feel like,” he swallowed and attempted to find the words amongst the cotton wool of his mind, “Like I fit into something … else. Something-”

“-Something worth living for.”

Stiles giggled.

“For a wolf with such funny ears you sure are sappy,” He spoke in bursts of laughter, “I could get used to a sappy Sour wolf.”

Stiles felt a warmth overtake his mind as Derek placed his hand on the back of his skull.

“I wont leave you either, Stiles.”

...

As they got into Derek's car and drove away, with Derek making plans to come back for Stiles car once the younger boy was safe at home, neither of them spared a look back to the forest.

If they had they would have seen split second flash of white. They would have seen the leaves rustle as though stirred to life by laughter, seen the animals come to a halt to watch them leave. 

They would have seen a woman with kindly brown eyes and the softest of smiles encased in light and crowned in Edelweiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like making something warm. To distress and stuff. I really like this actually.


End file.
